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A popular US restaurant chain has confirmed a series of nationwide closings as part of a major restructuring drive. Smokey Bones, a casual dining BBQ restaurant, closed several sites in New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois and Rhode Island on April 28, according to reports.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The company, which launched in 1999 initially as a sports bar before evolving into a dining chain, is owned by Fat Brands Inc., which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Employees at affected restaurants told US media that they learned on the morning of the mass closure that they had lost their jobs, further reducing the brand’s once-vast portfolio of 120 sites across the country. The previous round of closures and conversions had reduced that number to about 31 in early 2026, with this month’s closure adding to the uncertainty over the future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The closures, implemented on April 28, included Smokey Bones branches in Mentor, Ohio and Warwick, Rhode Island.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A sign posted in the window of the Warwick restaurant read: “We regret to announce that this location has permanently closed its doors effective Tuesday, April 28.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Employees at the chain’s sites in Colonie, New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania also told local media they learned of the closure plans Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Although the company has not released any formal statement on the closure, its website lists all Smokey Bones restaurants as closed every day of the week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Fat Brands Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on January 26, 2026, according to a filing seen by People.com.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The court-supervised process allows the multi-brand restaurant and sports bar operator to keep its sites open while restructuring debt and negotiating with creditors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Court filings revealed that the group had estimated assets and liabilities of between $1 billion (\u00a3740 million) and $10 billion (\u00a37.4 billion).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A popular US restaurant chain has confirmed a series of nationwide closings as part of a major restructuring drive. Smokey Bones, a casual dining BBQ restaurant, closed several sites in New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois and Rhode Island on April 28, according to reports. The company, which launched in 1999 initially as a sports bar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[26896,5104,4939,520,615,1440,7119,166],"class_list":{"0":"post-109133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-branches","9":"tag-chains","10":"tag-closed","11":"tag-country","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-restaurant","14":"tag-suddenly","15":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109135,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109133\/revisions\/109135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}